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The aim of this study is to include the dynamics of recent biblical research in Orthodox and Western, especially Protestant, theological spheres. Both Orthodox and Western biblical theology have their own course of research, which can be inspired by the achievements of both sides. Thus, we see that Orthodox biblical studies have been lately focused on receiving and developing of the exegetical method, and in that sense they can incline to the experience of the West, particularly the historical-critical method. On the other hand, Western biblicists try to convey to the present time the meaning of biblical texts or their supplements, which is closely related to the Orthodox biblical experience. The solution to these problems can be found through a mutually complement with ecumenical connotations.
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The conception of Conquest is part of the so-called Deuteronomistic History (DH). There are many evidences that the Book of Joshua have originated in the seventh century in Judea as the “political program” of Emperor Josiah. The Assyrian conquest of the north and the placing of Judea in the vassal position, according to this tradition, were the result of the neglect of the obligations arising from the Sinai alliance. It was necessary to follow the Lord fully, to eradicate idolatry, and thus to gain God’s favor. In that context, the Book of Joshua had a paradigmatic character, saying that when a chosen people truly follows the Lord, no one can oppose it. Once upon a time, God’s people, adhering to the laws of Sinai, managed to overthrow Hanan, and only in this way they will be able to defeat the Assyrians — this was the key theological message of Josiah’s religious reform, expressed in the spirit of the Deuteronomistic History. Conquest as presented in the Book of Joshua and in some parts of the Book of Judges, Numbers, and Deuteronomy is part of the theological reinterpretation of Israeli identity. We can conclude that Joshua is in fact a metaphorical portrait of Judean King Josiah and that the story about the Conquest of Canaan creates a plan for future conquest but also serves as an example of the right relationship of the chosen people with their God.
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An act of worshiping apostles Paul and Barnabas by citizens of Lystra, which was described in Acts of the Apostles, could not be understood properly without introducing the cultural background as well as religious. Lystra was a province, mostly habited by barbarians, in contrast to its surrounding, where Romans and Hellenes were the dominant populations. For people from that area, worshiping gods in human bodies was custom. We can find justification for that statement in well-known creation of Publius Ovidius Naso known as Metamorphoses, in which he describes appearance of Zeus and Hermes in human bodies. Author of Acts describes one specific situation of misunderstanding (deification of Paul and Barnabas) which was expected to happen during early period of spreading of Christianity and its contact with hellenistic polytheism. He interprets the cult of Zeus and Hermes in christian code: Contrary to hellenistic gods who can show themselves as humans, christian missioners Paul and Barnabas are just mediators of only-existing God. Implication is following: People of Lystra should recognize that God “in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways”, but now they “should turn from these vanities unto the living God”.
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Chrysostom was not a preacher of Christian communism, but a preacher of the union of all people in Christ, the communion of church, Eucharistic, unity of unity of faith and love, but also in all material goods. One of the constant topics of his socio-ethical preachings (and his preaching was almost always of such character) is the problem of social injustice, material and social inequality, the problem of wealth and poverty, the greed of property greed. If we look at the Old Testament prophetic movement, as much as it was initiated by the pluralism of Israel, it also appeared as a prophetic reflection and response to a concrete theological-social problem, represented in an unequal distribution of goods and a system of social inequality. The era in which Chrysostom enters the historical scene is the era of a society based on slavery principles, and the global characteristics of the empire of that time have greatly influenced Christian communities and interpersonal relations. In these and such circumstances, St. John appears as a “social prophet” of his time, and his criticism and condemnation of society, typologically educate the prophetic methodology and way of addressing. The author’s intentions of this work is a historical-critical review of Chrysostom ‘s perception of the social concept of the Old Testament prophets, that is, his actualization and contextualization of the prophetic message, transformed in Christ’s gospel commandments of love for God and for the fellowmen.
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Abstract In the present study, we aim to illustrate how the canon of the Old Testament is regarded in the thinking of the Eastern Church, showing first how it formed in the Jewish tradition and then how it was assumed and read by the Church Fathers. We do not aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of the composition of the biblical canon or to present the differences between the lists of writings from various translations of the Holy Scripture, but we will focus only on the historical moments which are relevant to the conservation and dissemination of the holy writings. We shall, however, insist on how the text of the Old Testament has been received, interpreted, and used by the Christian Church within its cultic structures. These perspectives will allow us to understand that the holy text is meant to be embodied, read, and interpreted.
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In Western academic scholarship, the status of the anaginoskomena (the books and additions not found in the Hebrew Bible, but in the Septuagint editions) in the Orthodox Church is not completely understood, especially regarding the differences between the Orthodox churches. For example, an introduction to the Old Testament from 2009 assumes that the anaginoskomena have “incontestable authority”, quoting professor Petros Vassiliadis. Apart from the Hebrew canon, other ten books are reckoned by the Orthodox, eight of them reckoned by the Catholics as well (Judith, Tobith, 1-2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Salomon, Ben Sira, Baruch, and Epistle of Jeremiah) and two books not accepted by the Catholics (3 Maccabees and 1 Esdras / 3 Ezra). The canonicity of other books, such as the Prayer of king Manasseh (with Odes) and Psalm 151 remains debatable. The Greek Church completes the list with 4 Maccabees and the Russian Church with 4 Ezra (Römer, Macchi, Nihan 2009). In another Western introduction, the fine separation of the Orthodox churches is completely unknown. The authors simply assume that the biblical books canonized by the Tridentin council in 1546 were canonized by the Orthodox Church in the council of Jerusalem in 1672 (Dietrich et al 2014). A more articulated view is present in the recent volume of proceedings regarding the biblical canon at the Eastern churches (Farrugia, Vergani 2017). The present paper aims at defining the status of the anaginoskomena in the Orthodox Church.
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The extension of the biblical canon in Orthodoxy represents a thorny, still unsolved, and probably unsolvable issue. Its history begins with the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek (the Septuagint) when, during the Second Temple period, after Ezra generally established the books received by Judaism, several books, mostly in Greek, which we call Anagignoskomena, meaning “acknowledged” or “worthy of reading”, were added to the Greek manuscripts. Moreover, in the deuterocanonical period, Judaism produced a series of other writings which largely circulated within the people, but in secret, unofficially, and which were not inventoried or later included on the lists of acknowledged books or in the official manuscripts containing the canonical books or the books of the Anagignoskomena. Nonetheless, the fascination they held and the authority some of them had were stronger than those of canonical writings. Some lacunal canonical biblical texts were being enriched or explained by them, sometimes offering many helping elements “from tradition”. The present study is intended to be an incursion into the world of these writings, which first influenced certain canonical writings, namely those acknowledged initially by the synagogue and then by the tradition of the Church. We will be surprised to find out that, although they are officially denied, the Christian writers from the past and, later, Christian and contemporary tradition have absorbed elements from them. Throughout the history of the biblical canon, there has been a certain attraction towards the forbidden or the taboo. Therefore, up to the life of the modern Christian, we will find notions and teachings which come from tradition, but which initially originate in these writings, to which official theology avoids granting too much importance.
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Hebrew Bible has been used in the past often and almost exclusively to foil a New Testament passage, thus overemphasizing on messianic prophecies, to fuel and defend a dogmatic statement, thus resorting to allegory and typology as the key hermeneutics, or to criticize, (and even demonize) the Jews as Christ haters, while not plumbing the Hebrew Bible for its own identity and intrinsic relevance. In the following lines, I bring forth a few examples of what I call “the power of metaphor of the Hebrew Bible”. And I will do this with deep respect to this literary-religious corpus that has never lost its “best-seller” status, while looking at these ever ancient, ever new biblical texts with the eye of a student of Bible and Semitic philology, but at the same time struggling to listen to the child in me, to return to those days when at my mother’s knees (literally!) I heard for the first time about Noah and the Flood story. What comes next is a brief immersion into the Hebrew Bible theological grammar with no claim whatsoever of ex-cathedra authority in selecting the texts.
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The present study aims to carry out an analysis of the relation between the Bibles of Samuil Micu and Andrei Șaguna from an isagogic perspective, with a particular focus on the canon and canonicity of the books of the Holy Scripture. We believe that, through such an analysis, we can observe what they have in common, but also what differentiates the two Transylvanian editions of the Holy Scripture so that we can help those interested in understanding the reasons behind the current controversies as to the relation between them. Although these controversies refer to the biblical text of the two Scriptural editions, the fact that the attitude towards it was caused by denominational factors, whose doctrinal background is represented by two different traditions of understanding the biblical canon, has been overlooked. This is why we find that the evaluation of how the two Romanian editions of the Holy Scripture (the Bible of Samuil Micu, 1795, and the Bible of Andrei Șaguna, 1856-1858) relate to the canonical tradition of each Church and cultivate their isagogics is fundamental for the establishment and understanding of the relation between them.
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This is a book review of: Ioan Chirilă (coord.), Dumitru Abrudan, Petre Semen, Oancea Constantin, Remus Onișor și Mircea Basarab, Introducere în Vechiul Testament [Introduction in Old Testament] (București: Basilica, 2018), 870 p.
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Book review of: Fr. Ioan Chirilă (coord.), Paula Bud, Stelian Pașca-Tușa, Bogdan Șopterean, Vechiul Testament în scrierile bibliștilor ortodocși români – ghid bibliografic [The Old Testament in the Writings of Romanian Biblical Orthodox Scholars] (Cluj-Napoca, Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2018).
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In the history of the scriptural covenant, a certain centrality of the Abrahamic covenant has been noticed. It was against the backdrop of this covenant that the harmonisation necessary for the relationship between Jews and God and later between all the gentiles and God was discovered. Most biblical interpretations regarding the Abrahamic covenant begin by briefly analysing and presenting key passages, which, most of the time, are identified with a key verse or a set of verses that explicitly nuance the reference framework of Covenant Theology. We can naturally ask ourselves: Why does the essence of Covenant Theology reside in the Abrahamic covenant? Why has Abraham been God’s most important dialogue partner in the framework of a covenant? In the present study, I will provide answers to these questions by resorting to the perspectives presented by well-known Western biblical scholars.
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Logos and rationality of creation are two of the most fundamental concepts of Christian Orthodox cosmology, built on the foundation of Saint John’s Gospel (Jn 1,1-3) and developed by the Fathers of the Church, culminating in Saint Maxim the Confessor theological synthesis. Modern biblical exegesis strives to determine the scientific accuracy of Old Testament cosmology, along with the analogies and similarities that Gen 1-3 has with other ANE cosmologies. However, considering the revealed and inspired dimension of the Scriptures, the Holy Fathers of the Church were not so much tempted to regard the literal and scientific level of the text. Instead, their focus was on the dialogical and rational character of the creation, which Cappadocian Fathers like Saint Basil the Great and Saint John Chrysostom, consider at the heart of the biblical cosmology. The present study aims to engage in a pursue of finding the rationality of creation that the Divine Logos, as Maxim the Confessor states, has planted and integrated in every element of creation as a clue for His presence and existence.
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The war of destruction against the Amalekites (1 Kings 15: 3), commanded by God to King Saul through the prophet Samuel, raises a number of ethical questions for the contemporary reader. To answer these questions we will try to read the text in the historical context from which it comes, to see what would have surprised a resident of the ancient Near East. We will also try to see what significance the war can have for Christians.
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Clarifying the ecstatic nature of Israel’s prophecy is a challenge to contemporary biblical criticism. Analysis of ecstatic hypostases in I Sam. 10:10-12; 19:18-24 leads to a recrudescent perspective on the Israelite prophetic phenomenon. The identification of ecstatic hypostases in the two texts under analysis helps to clarify the connection between the possession trance and the Israelite prophecy. The Deuteronomist’s interference presents a play of shadows and lights shed on Saul. Despite the focus of the two accounts on the figure of the monarch, the narrator’s intention is to present the rise of the Davidic dynasty. The two texts would hide an ideological and religious conflict of relatively late prophetic groups. The purpose of the dispute is the permanence of ruah Yahweh as a transgression of the episodic manifestations of the pre-monarchical period in the context of ecstatic prophecy. Ecstasy and trance come together under the auspices of the spirit possession phenomenon, which requires a framing in an individual and cultural context.
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Man is a being endowed by God with the boundless thirst for knowledge, to accumulate knowledge, both about God and about the world around him. Therefore, when it comes to God, man has tried to name the Absolute Being with different names, through which to refer and address the Divinity. Each appointment given to God expresses what man has understood about His Person, expressing the manifestations of God (Good, Merciful, Mighty, etc.) in His relationship with man. However, there was a time when God Himself, at the request of His servant Moses, revealed His Name, the deepest and most complex name, which expresses in words the Being and Person of God, that is, that He is incomprehensible, omnipotent, omnipresent, and other characteristics of God. To be able to understand and know God, it is necessary to create a connection with Him, a connection that is realized, especially, through His Name. By knowing God's Name, we know who we are addressing and feel closer to. In our minds, questions often arise about God and His Name. This study will highlight the role of the Name and the need-to-know God's Name, especially the one revealed to Moses "I am who I am.
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When it comes to lions as a symbol in the Bible, and generally, in the Ancient Near East, numerous pages were written about it. On the other hand, only a few were dedicated to bears. However, when it comes to the lions and bears in the story of David and Goliath and young David's bragging about his endeavor, scholars have not paid much attention to it. Why this combination of lions and bears? Why not wolves and leopards? They were a greater threat to the shepherds of that time. Perhaps our author has something else in mind, especially if we know how large role lions played in the Ancient Near East's royal ideology, even up to the Hellenistic period. Can this usage of lions and bears tell us something more about the story itself? Why and when was it written? And what was its goal?
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